HARARE, April 28 (The Source) – Zimbabwe Asset Management Company (Zamco) has purchased $29,5 million worth of non-performing loans from Pan-African banking group BancABC, boosting Atlas Mara’s first quarter profit to $5 million.
Zamco is a special purpose vehicle set up by government in 2014 to purchase non-performing loans from banks and clean their balance sheets.
The London-listed financial services group founded by former Barclays Plc chief executive Bob Diamond and Ugandan billionaire Ashish Thakkar, said the non-performing loans ratio for three months to March 31 was largely flat at 13,1 percent, with a target of 10 percent by the end of 2017.
Zamco’s NPLs purchase boosted its profit by $1,7 million, it said.
The quarterly report is its largest since inception, after bouncing from a loss of $6.7 million in the comparable period last year.
“In Zimbabwe we continued to implement our POS terminal roll out, resulting in 187 merchants, 463 deployed devices and achieved $5.3 million in transactions,” said Atlas in a trading update. BancABC reported a profit after tax of $1,8 million in the full year to December 2016, while operating income dropped by 13,3 percent to $41,6 million.